Liminality, Embodiment and Metamorphosis: Applying the Transformative Power of Ceremonial Magic to Mixed Reality Games Design

This paper proposes that the centuries-old practice of ceremonial magic offers a useful design framework for mixed reality (MR) games, particularly in how it structures altered states of consciousness, embodied participation, and transformation. Its central argument is that ceremonial magic's techniques for shifting perception and identity, such as dramaturgy, ritual masks, myth-based narrative, and synchronicity, can help designers create immersive experiences that bridge physical and digital worlds. The authors frame the work as an extension of an earlier theoretical framework, developed through interviews with occultists and MR designers, and position it as a work in progress that seeks a new approach to concept creation for MR games.

The proposed framework rests on four interlocking pillars: orientation, transitions, enaction, and meaning making. Orientation covers the preparatory stage in which players are introduced to the device, space, story, and their own role, with onboarding and offboarding methods establishing context. Transitions address the liminal spaces created as players move between states, arguing that meaning making should continue within these ephemeral moments. Enaction emphasizes embodied interaction, treating the body and senses as the interface through which players reach metamorphosis. Meaning making, drawing on a four-dimensional conception of coherence, purpose, significance, and self-transcendence, subsumes the other pillars.

The paper's scope is conceptual and theoretical rather than empirical; it reports no survey or experimental sample, and its methodology rests on literature review and the prior interview study with practitioners. Its guiding research questions concern what kinds of MR games emerge from ceremonial magic principles, which mechanics the affordances of immersive technologies inspire, and how body, space, and narrative can be integrated to foster meaning making.